Amanda Cole Gets Sexiled
by EnlightenedSkye
Summary: Everyone's favorite MACO Corporal finds herself without a place to stay for the night and winds up making amends. [T for language and sexual innuendo. CTP friendship, TF for exposition. For both TnTers and non-TnTers alike. Complete oneshot]


A/N: I think we can all agree, regardless of what shipper camp we belong to, that Harbinger was a train wreck episode. What should have been a poignant, personal moment was played off for ratings and was needlessly provocative. What bothered me the most was Amanda's characterization. She wasn't ever fleshed out more than a one-dimensional stereotype of a mean girl bimbo that challenged T'Pol for Trip's affections. It's the twenty first century, and we don't need to be pitting women against each other for no reason.

This oneshot was just a title for over a year, mostly because I found it endlessly amusing. If you are a TnTer, you may see that implied ship here. If you aren't, enjoy it at face value. I've noticed that TnTers rewrite Harbinger, and do it well, making it a hundred times more romantic and meaningful than the original version, while people that ship anything else tend to avoid the episode like the plague. I haven't shipped TnT for a few years, but I'm sympathetic to your plight. With this, I hope to bring the fandom together. Three cheers for healthy, supportive female friendship.

Beta read by BonesBird. Complete as posted. Tentative PG-13 rating for language and sexual innuendo. McKenzie/Mayweather pairing for exposition, because old habits die hard.

 **Amanda Cole Gets Sexiled**

Corporal Amanda Cole, Floridian, sharpshooter, and MACO extraordinaire, was many things. However, patient was not one of them.

"How long is this going to take?" she asked lamely, elbows perched on a pillow at the end of her bunk and ankles crossed behind her.

"As long as it takes." Her roommate, Fiona McKenzie, every bit of a personality and spitfire as she, answered vaguely. The muscular blonde was busy at their bathroom mirror, applying a pearly colored lip balm with a liberal hand.

"The ship's helmsman, of all people," Amanda exhaled slowly and used her index finger to indicate a single digit. "The first man you fawn over since college, and it has to be Travis Mayweather."

"I think someone's just bitter," Fiona asserted pointedly, exiting their adjoining bathroom and approaching her companion. Turning to the side, she directed Amanda to force the closure on her fitted cocktail dress.

She complied, but knew that that could not be the last comment spoken on the matter. "If you're referring to who I think you are, I'm not. Haven't even thought of him since the Expanse."

McKenzie offered a knowing smirk. "As if there was ever any resolution there. I saw you at movie night last week, trading Sanchez seats so you could be next to him."

 _Damn_. People back home could say what they wanted, but your average high school had nothing on the cloistered crew of a starship. Fiona was her best friend, a title that she didn't dole out indulgently, and that meant she had to put up with a bit of good natured teasing. "That was legit. You try seeing around the Doctor when he's all hyped up and hell bent on ruining the film for the rest of us. I just thought that Trip was looking desperate, stranded in the front row and unable to get a word in edgewise."

Fiona rolled her eyes, taking great care in lowering the lighting levels of the room. "You don't even like _Citizen Kane_ ," she said, moving to arrange the cushions on her bunk.

"It's a classic," Amanda protested, silently studying her roommate as she cued up a tasteful mix of soft jazz. Everything, even down to the unopened bottle of red wine on the dresser, spoke of her intentions for the evening. "I suppose I should find somewhere else to sleep."

"You're goddamned right you should," she replied.

Grabbing a blanket off of her bed, Amanda moved to leave. However, she couldn't resist getting a word in edgewise. "Make sure you use protection, Fifi. Hayes hasn't been running us ragged to wind up babysitting."

A pillow flew through the air and hit the door just as it slid shut.

On the other side of the door, Amanda realized just how awkward her situation was. Wearing only a worn pair of sweatpants and a hoodie, barefoot and without a place to lay her head for the night, she felt truly out of place. Her routine, the same one she was followed since being assigned to _Enterprise_ after the bombing of Earth, had been disrupted for the first time.

And there was nothing that drove her to her wit's end more than a loss of control.

The decision to volunteer for the mission had been easy. All of her life, Amanda had relished a challenge. Even when it had backfired, she could pretend like it didn't affect her. It wasn't as if she hadn't expected there to be complications; her training had been nothing but lectures and valuable applications in handling the unexpected. In many disciplines of fighting—she was proficient at more than a handful of them—it was drilled into the pupil's head to never present oneself as vulnerable. This had made sense to her. If you never turned your back to your opponent, you could never be taken advantage of and subsequently defeated.

When it came to Commander Tucker, she didn't know where she had went so wrong. Perhaps it was the fact that he was one of the few things she had to remind her of all that she'd left behind. All of her belongings, childhood mementos, and family albums had been destroyed along with her apartment complex in downtown Panama City. Luckily, she had been out of town at the time visiting her parents in Virginia Beach. In addition to the recently abandoned family home, her former high school and a majority of her old neighborhood on the outskirts of the city were decimated. She knew that it would be expected of her to survey the damage and report back to her parents up the coast, or her sister in New York. Instead, she found herself jumping on the next available transport to Atlanta.

The headquarters of the Military Assault Command Operations were full of frantic personnel answering the questions of people who had come to do the very same as she. It was rumored that Starfleet planned on deploying their most advanced ship in order to seek revenge for the damage wrought. They'd need protection, most likely from the planet's most prestigious core of hired mercenaries.

Amanda was told that her resume was nothing short of spectacular. She taught martial arts to area children in a small studio near the boardwalk; she held several certifications of her own and had been a world champion sharpshooter in high school. Several weeks later, after a crash initiation course at West Point, she had first met Major Hayes.

Their orders had come down directly from General Casey himself. Their commandant had assured Captain Archer that her particular detachment was the very best, compromised of the most ruthless and calculating men and women in their ranks. In a riveting speech to the entire group, Hayes had implored them not to mess up this opportunity to prove themselves. It may have greater consequences than any of them realized.

Upon coming aboard, Amanda had sworn off several things that had previously enriched her civilian lifestyle, including alcohol, revelry, and romantic relationships. She typically had fantastic luck with men, and that wasn't for lack of trying. Being one of the few officers of the female persuasion in the company, they usually came to _her_. But Trip Tucker was different.

They'd first met during one of their joint training sessions, sparring in silence. He'd noticed how she paused to stretch the muscles in her back every so often, rubbing her shoulders as if she was in pain. At first Amanda had refused his help—an analgesic from the doctor on board could have been just fine—but he was insistent. And when she had finally seized the opportunity to straddle him, thumbs pressed into the nodes in his lower back, she had decided that Vulcan neuropressure wasn't so bad after all.

Conversation during these sessions was usually innocent, occasionally punctuated by a bit of innuendo. She came to learn that Trip loved sports and cinema just as much as she did. He was charming, with a quick wit. Every bit of it should have been a red flag, a signal for Amanda to start backpedaling before they went too far.

One kiss was all it took for a whirlwind flirtation to commence. She had been feeling lonely, seeking a distraction to keep her thoughts of loss from consuming her. Amanda knew that a casual fling wasn't enough to bring her back from the fringes of depression, but after all she'd been through, it was worth a shot.

Shouldering her light load, Cole began to make tracks towards the one place on the ship where she felt the most comfortable. The gym was situated directly below engineering, filling the room with the indiscriminate drone that Trip found so relaxing. She hadn't noticed it before he said something. It was like a heartbeat, a steady reassurance that their mission would continue regardless of her personal crises.

No one, save for the odd gamma shift crewman, would be trying to work out this time of night. The countless rows of sparring mats, exercise machines, and treadmills would be empty. The idea of this sparse orderliness appealed to her. There were some pretty broad benches in the women's locker room; she made a decision that that was where she would be making her bed for the night.

As Amanda entered the gym, she was immediately aware that she wasn't alone. The lights had been brought up to one hundred percent, unusual for the lateness of the hour, and a punching bag had been removed from the rack on the wall. Even though the area where the MACOs usually sparred with the enlisted crew was hidden by rows of tall equipment, she could discern the sound of someone's gloved fists pummeling their target.

There was an odd lack of noise; typically such exercise was accompanied by grunts or sharp intake of air. Yet the chains rattled and the bag repeatedly struck the wall with the force of the person's punches. Allowing her blanket to slide to the floor, Amanda went to investigate.

She found Commander T'Pol, barefoot and with a band of cloth wrapped around her brow, going after the punching bag as if it were her mortal enemy. Her familiar set of workout gear—Cole suspected she had multiple copies of the same uniform—was stained with perspiration. Even in their most intense training sessions, she'd never seen the Vulcan break as much as a sweat before.

Something niggled in the back of Amanda's mind, the primal instinct of fight of flight that often tells one when something isn't exactly right. It had been three weeks since she had received a corrective neuropressure treatment from this woman, and a little over a month since T'Pol had made her intentions with Trip known. This hadn't occurred in so many words, but the MACO knew after all this time to trust her instincts.

To say that she had been intimidated at first by the stoic science officer would be an understatement. T'Pol was immensely knowledgeable about everything she cared to investigate, and carried with her the air of superiority that Amanda could immediately respect. She'd spent a great deal of her twenties trying to keep her emotions in line, and to see one of her peers doing just that apparently with ease had caused her to become jealous.

From childhood, it had been drilled into Amanda's head that women must be powerful, yet yielding; obstinate, but composed; and above all, determined in one's chosen path. She still considered herself to be quite young and adrift in a sea of indetermination, so she also idolized the Vulcan to some degree. T'Pol was everything she wanted to be, even as hyperbolic as that sentiment was. It was quite a quandary she found herself in.

When she'd been challenged for Trip's affections, she'd given in immediately. It wasn't as if she'd been looking for a serious relationship to begin with. If they were to survive as a crew, they couldn't start pitting one against the other. Lieutenant Reed and Major Hayes were living proof of that. Amanda knew that comparing herself to an unreachable standard would get her nowhere, so she'd chosen to bow out before things could intensify any further.

Over the course of the next few weeks, she had kept one ear trained to the freshest gossip, which was not typical for her. Whatever moment of crisis had come between the two commanders, it had obviously come to pass behind closed doors. It really wasn't Amanda's concern, no matter how curious she found herself becoming. Her relationship with Trip didn't suffer; in fact, he was just as friendly as he was before their tryst. However, he did seem a little jaded, a little disaffected by what was going on around him, and she couldn't help but wonder why.

Amanda watched her superior land blow after blow to her target with rather impressive speed and agility. She couldn't remember the last time she'd seen T'Pol this violent; the stately martial art _suus mahna_ was more her style. Yet, here she was, performing with such accuracy that would challenge any member of the MACO squadron.

"Tuck your chin down," she found herself saying absently, watching as the Commander's field of vision bobbed up and down with the movement of her head. "It helps you line up your sights."

Finally, T'Pol took notice to the newest occupier of the room. Placing a palm on the rectangular target on the bag's surface, she acknowledged the tip.

Both women were silent for quite some time before Amanda cut in once more. She was feeling uncharacteristically bold. "I was under the impression that you're working alpha shift this week, ma'am."

It was nearly midnight, but that didn't seem to matter to T'Pol. "That I am, Corporal."

Clearly, with her brows knit together and defensive stance assumed, she was here to work out a few issues of her own. In Amanda's experience, a good workout could be cathartic. The fact that the Vulcan had chosen exercise over sleep or meditation was truly telling.

"I have brought an extra pair of gloves," T'Pol declares suddenly, her eyes not leaving the punching bag. As the MACO moved off to retrieve them, she broke convention and brought her leg up to deliver a swift kick to the target.

Upon returning, Amanda crossed her arms and set to studying the technique of her companion. It was superb, even if it was suddenly a bit unorthodox. Eventually, she decided to break the uncomfortable silence. "Ma'am, permission to speak freely?"

"Of course. We're both off duty, Miss Cole," she huffed, even though the formality had set her a bit on edge.

So it wasn't exactly an extended olive branch, but it was a start. According the Fiona and the majority of the female contingent of the ship, the two women had it out for each other. She wasn't sure if this was entirely true. In fact, Amanda dearly hoped it wasn't.

She struggled between the boundary of propriety and expectation for quite some time. What she really wanted to ask was clearly off the table. The personal relationships between two officers were private, even if they weren't in the same chain of command. However, the more she thought about it, the less T'Pol's potential involvement with Commander Tucker mattered to her. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to instruct me in the Vulcan martial arts."

A hand came out to stop the swaying bag. That and a raised eyebrow were the only indications that her request had been heard. Suddenly, Amanda felt very off balance.

"I know that it takes years to master, but Hayes wants us to be familiar with different styles of warfare. If more of the crew knew the basic moves, it could give us an edge in a hand to hand combat," she continued, daring to make eye contact.

T'Pol disengaged from the punching bag and approached her newest charge with the faintest hint of a smile. "It would be my honor to mentor you in the _suus mahna_."

A wave of relief washed over Amanda. She lost count of how many times she thanked the science officer before they both turned in for the night, or the exact moment it was suggested that she return the favor with marksmanship. All she knew was that she was immensely pleased that the awkward atmosphere between them had been shattered. After a while, it was decided that there couldn't have possibly been a better outcome to her roommate kicking her out for the evening.

It was unusual, but it had set something beneficial in motion. And perhaps that could be enough.

 **The End**


End file.
